The leader of En Comú and deputy of Sumar, Gerardo Pisarello, assured this Tuesday that both the voting in the Permanent Deputation of the housing law decrees rejected by the Plenary of Congress and the call for a general strike due to the housing crisis have "full legal coverage."
The repeal of those law decrees last Friday triggered the advance of the general elections to November 29 and the consequent dissolution of Congress and the Senate, in addition to the agreement of the trade union organizations to promote a general strike due to the housing situation.
With the Cortes already dissolved, the Executive has confirmed that it will reapprove the annulled decrees in the Council of Ministers and that it will send them to the Permanent Deputation, where it does have sufficient support to move forward, at least, the decree with general measures on housing.
In this body, there are 69 seats, and the bloc that supported the first housing decree adds a majority of 35 representatives, made up of PSOE, Sumar, ERC, Bildu, PNV, and Podemos, against the 34 gathered by PP, Vox, and Junts. The second decree, focused on the automatic renewal of rental contracts, still lacks a majority in the Permanent Deputation, as the PNV also rejected it in the Plenary.
Vox questions the maneuver and Sumar endorses it
Vox has expressed its doubts about the legality of this route and is even considering the possibility of challenging it in court. However, the deputy of Sumar and first secretary of the Congress Table has defended that the Government's action conforms to the regulations of the Lower House.
"The regulations provide for the possibility that the Permanent Deputation can validate law decrees," he pointed out at a press conference held this Tuesday in Congress, dismissing that this strategy could constitute a "fraud of law."
The representative of Sumar has specified that the texts that will be submitted to a vote in the Permanent Deputation will not be "exactly" the same as those debated in the Plenary of Congress.
He also added that the decrees must be supported by a situation of extraordinary and urgent necessity, and recalled that the Constitutional Court has already recognized that in the field of housing there is "a housing emergency situation."
From this perspective, Pisarello argues that the housing emergency "is more than proven" and argues that, even with a caretaker government like the current one and within the competencies allowed by the current regulatory framework, it is not only possible but mandatory to promote exceptional and urgent measures to prevent "millions of people from ending up on the street."
General strike and protests for housing
In relation to the call for a general strike, supported by the unions CCOO, UGT, and CGT, the member of the Congress Table has emphasized that, in the same way as the camps, "they are a legitimate expression of basic rights recognized in the Constitution," such as the right to protest and the right to strike itself.
"Therefore, we believe they have full legal coverage and full social justification," concluded Pisarello.